With his luxuriously long gray-white beard and greased collar-length hair, Jim McAllister might seem out of place commanding a $75-million project to widen the Ventura Freeway. But if one imagines commuters as a herd of cows on a four-lane cattle drive--and many weekday commuters won't have much difficulty conjuring that image--then the colorful McAllister fits right in.

With his luxuriously long gray-white beard and greased collar-length hair, Jim McAllister might seem out of place commanding a $75-million project to widen the Ventura Freeway. But if one imagines commuters as a herd of cows on a four-lane cattle drive--and many weekday commuters won't have much difficulty conjuring that image--then the colorful McAllister fits right in.

The new fourth lane eastbound on the Ventura Freeway in Woodland Hills will be restriped tonight and opened to traffic at 6 a.m. Thursday, state Department of Transportation officials announced. The new fourth lane westbound will be opened to traffic early Saturday morning, said Jim McAllister, resident engineer of the $22-million widening project.

Former Sen. Barry Goldwater, 78, was admitted to a hospital here, but a spokesman said Goldwater asked that no information be released on his condition. Jim McAllister, a spokesman for St. Luke's Medical Center, said Wednesday: "He's a patient. What he's in for, I don't know." McAllister said he believed Goldwater had been admitted either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

Calabasas is expected to advertise for bids next month on a project to spruce up Old Town Calabasas and ease traffic woes. The city's Calabasas Road Streetscapes Improvement Plan is designed to lure shoppers to Old Town, a collection of shops and restaurants. Officials expect the $1.8-million project to be completed by year's end. Plans include adding old-fashioned street lamps and boardwalks to enhance the district's Old West flavor.

Lanes, ramps and connector roads on the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley will be closed tonight and Saturday night to permit work on widening the congested thoroughfare, Caltrans announced Thursday. From 10 p.m. today to 9 a.m. Saturday, up to three eastbound and westbound lanes will be closed between Haskell and Wilbur avenues. During the same hours, the southbound San Diego Freeway connector road to the westbound Ventura Freeway also will be closed. From 11 p.m. Saturday to 11 a.m.

Up to three lanes of the Hollywood and Ventura freeways in the San Fernando Valley will be closed tonight and Saturday night to facilitate work on widening the congested thoroughfares, Caltrans announced Thursday. From 11 tonight to 11 a.m. Saturday, up to two westbound lanes will be closed on the Ventura Freeway between Hayvenhurst Avenue and Reseda Boulevard, and up to two eastbound lanes on the freeway will be closed between Wilbur and Hayvenhurst avenues. From 11 p.m. Saturday to 11 a.m.

After two decades of study and delays, a $15-million renovation of a crowded, 1950s-era interchange between the Ventura Freeway and Valley Circle Boulevard is under way. The expansion of two freeway off-ramps and an overpass near Old Calabasas will help ease the often-congested interchange, said Jim McAllister, Caltrans engineer for the project. "The way the area has been built up, there is a lot of traffic on this interchange," McAllister said. "And it looks like there's going to be a lot more."

Caltrans officials said the reconstruction of the interchange at Valley Circle Boulevard and Calabasas Road is expected to continue for at least one more week as it waits for an electricity source to be made available. Jim McAllister, a resident engineer for Caltrans, said a date to open all lanes of Calabasas Road and a new Valley Circle eastbound onramp of the Ventura Freeway may be released this week. Caltrans had expected the work to be completed by late June.

A major portion of a new interchange at the west end of Woodland Hills is expected to be complete and ready for traffic early next month, officials said Tuesday. The $10-million project at Valley Circle Boulevard and Mulholland Drive was designed to improve traffic flow from Calabasas to the Los Angeles side of the Ventura Freeway. Meanwhile, construction, which began in January, 1994, has forced numerous detours that have snarled traffic and tried motorists' patience.